I READ SOMEWHERE, once, that crying defies scientific explanation.

Well if you’re getting all your information from Erudite, that really doesn’t surprise me.

I think it’s the “defy” in there that really sticks in my craw. I mean, there’s some debate about the exact evolutionary advantage to turning into a snotfest in response to emotional stimuli, but we have several working theories, tons of data, and absolutely nothing that says “EGADS, ALL OF OUR DATA SAYS THAT THIS SHOULD NOT BE, AND YET, NATURE IS FLYING IN THE FACE OF IT!” Not fully understanding something =/= defying science.

I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity.

Now if you want to talk about defying science…

Later, Tris is taken to see Jeanine, who wants to do more testing. At least this time it is testing. Tris demands to know about Tobias, doesn’t find out, there’s immature banter, and then we finally get down to things.

She goes under a simulation, and this time it’s her mom and her on a bus, as her mom tries to convince her that Erudite is not all bad and there to help.

“I worry that all your father’s blustering about Erudite has been to your detriment,” she says gently. “They’ve made mistakes, of course, but they, like everyone else, are a blend of good and bad, not one or the other. What would we do without our doctors, our scientists, our teachers?”

What bugs me the most here is that this should be the logical argument, and in a better book it would actually be a point of contention, where Erudite is a mix of good and bad, where they are logical and helpful and full of people doing their best, and all the evil is just a matter of circumstances, and Tris has to reconcile people who make sense and want good with the bad things that they are actually doing.

Here? Psh. The closest we get to a reasonable argument is coming from dream!Mommy after the EvilWeevil Scientists jabbed a needle in her neck, which really undermines any chance any of this had for being subtle.

But Tris knows something is wrong and figures out that it’s a simulation, so she wakes up and taunts Jeanine for having it not quite work.

Back in her cell, Tris has an actual dream of her mom. Man, that whole “floor made of lightbulbs” was such a wasted opportunity…

I wake wondering how I did not notice, every day I sat across from her at the breakfast table, that she was full to bursting with Dauntless energy. Was it because she hid it well? Or was it because I wasn’t looking?

What is it with this book and its deterministic approach to factions? We have a setup where the whole point is that your birth doesn’t determine your fate, you do, you can chose to be anything, and yet Tris just will not fucking give up with equating everyone she comes across with their place of birth. It’s taking one of the few good things about the original concept and pretty much negating it.

Peter comes to escort her, and the narration here is pretty nice at showing disjointed thought patters from her being all out of sorts.

She ends up in the execution chamber this time, and there’s a lot of other people in it, too.

I don’t know what most of those machines do, but among them is a heart monitor. What does Jeanine plan to do that requires a heart monitor?

I’m guessing either make sure you’re dead because they’re going to execute you, or make sure you’re still alive while they experiment on you. Really, it’s a heart monitor, there’s only so many options.

Oh. Oh wait. This is the series that thinks slowing your heartrate means you’re not scared anymore. Don’t tell me.

Tobias comes in, all limp and bloody, and apparently they’re going to torture Tris to make him tell stuff. Tris tells him not to since they’re all going to die anyway, so Tobias keeps mum.

Truth serum would be preferable, of course, but it would take days to coerce Jack Kang into handing some over, as it is jealously guarded by the Candor, and I’d rather not waste a few days.”

But…so you’re telling me that the faction that studies and makes serums as part of their daily-do hasn’t figured out how to make a truth serum yet? And also that Candor makes their own of that stuff? Did they invent it themselves, or did Erudite invent it for them, hand over the recipe, and then politely delete all their research data?

“When I was developing the Dauntless simulations, years ago,

See, they make other people’s serums, why don’t have the Candor one?

Well, after looking up some more stuff on Wiki, the book informs us that the fear simulation works by stimulating the amygdale and then inducing a hallucination. Jeanine found there was a certain amount of stimulation that the brain just flat couldn’t handle, and that’s what she’s going to be injecting into Tris now.

It starts off pretty well, with Tris just going mindlessly scared, and then the hallucinations start and I have to just sigh.

Because, see, I don’t know shit about the amygdale and it’s been mentioned in like five shows I’ve seen, all with claims of different brain powers, so I’m guessing it’s something complex and not easily reduced to a plot point. However, when you say “induce fear” and then turn that to mean “dream up scary shit,” then I have something to work with.

Hallucinations are not produced by one single part of the brain, they’re pretty complex, and also they’re not connected to fear. You can be scared of anything. You can be scared of toes. If your brain says “HOLY SHIT I’M SCARED,” then you don’t have to be scared of something, you’re just scared. And, in fact, it seems like it would be a lot easier to just squirt the right hormones into someone’s brain and make them go haywire with fear than it would be to concoct the exact right set of images to make the brain do that to itself. And how much creepier would it be to have Tris panicked with terror over literally nothing, rather than the…frankly bland hallucinations that show up instead?

After I skip over most of her brain pictures because they don’t matter, Jeanine finally sedates her. (Which, would that really make her less scared, or would it just make her less reactive to her fear?)

Another needle in my neck

Why does everything get injected into the neck? I mean, I feel like there’s a reason we don’t do that here in the real world…

Tobias agrees to tell them where the factionless safehouses are, and they leave the room. Before Tris fully passes out from her sedative, Jeanine says they’re going to examine her brain some more while she’s out.

But before that … I promised you full transparency with these procedures. So I feel it’s only fair that you know exactly who has been assisting me in my endeavors.”
Um…was this part of an earlier draft that just didn’t get edited out, because Tris said something similar earlier in the chapter, too. But the only deal I remember is good MRI scan=getting to see the scan.

Anyway, turns out Caleb has been telling his faction everything about Tris so they can use it against her.

Dun, dun, dun.

Of course, if the book had bothered to stick to its original claim of “faction before blood,” this wouldn’t actually be a surprise.